Programs & Events
US-supported Rice Mill Helps Train Landmine Victims
Seam Village, Bovel District, Battambang Province
December 03, 2007
Clear Path International (CPI) and Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development (CVCD) recently celebrated the opening of their new rice mill and vocational training center in Battambang province. The project provides socio-economic support to rural and mine-affected communities along the Thai border in the form of rice milling services, micro-credit for household farming, agricultural extension services and vocational training programs for landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) accident survivors. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement, the McKnight Foundation, and the United Nations Association’s Adopt-A-Minefield campaign. U.S. government support for the project in 2006 and 2007 totaled more than $100,000.
The project goals are:
- To construct and run a rice mill which will employ landmine accident survivors and use profits to fund programs directed to both mine-impacted persons and their communities;
- To provide free vocational training-- including mechanics courses and agricultural extension programs--to survivors of landmine and UXO accidents; and
- To create a farmer's cooperative and provide micro-credit to these local farmers.
The rice will be purchased from members of the co-ops formed under CVCD guidance. Co-op members are trained in the best cultivation methods and supplementary farming activities, and supported with micro loans in the form of cash, seed crop and/or in-kind equipment grants. Additional rice will be purchased from other farmers in western Battambang Province, one of the country’s most productive rice-growing areas. The rice will be sold to several thousand disadvantaged urban households already identified by CVCD in the greater Phnom Penh area, where they currently have poor access to affordable, high-quality rice.
Initially, the mill will process about 40 tons of raw husk rice per month for a total of 480 tons per year, converting the husk rice to 288 tons of nutritional rice. The difference will generate other products that can be sold as well, such as bran and cracked rice for animal feed. Proceeds from the rice mill are expected to make the project--including ongoing vocational training in mechanics and farming--self-sustaining by 2009 or 2010. By 2010, project managers expect 750 landmine survivors and 2,000 – 3,000 disadvantaged urban households will be beneficiaries of the program annually.
The mission of Clear Path International, an active member of the humanitarian mine action community since 2000, is to serve landmine accident survivors, their families and their communities. It does so through medical, social and economic services to landmine/UXO survivors and their families in Vietnam, Cambodia and along the Thai-Burmese border, and by strengthening community healthcare providers through equipment donations, training and technical assistance.
Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development (CVCD) aims to reduce poverty within communities through education and volunteerism, by offering disadvantaged citizens the opportunities to co-operate in their community development. This is achieved by offering literacy and vocational skill training as well as health and environmental education in return for their involvement in community projects. CVCD aims to empower the disadvantaged to shape their own lives and gain employment, while spreading the spirit of volunteerism in Cambodia.
